To Everything There is an End
by Mizumaru Mari
Summary: "Now she is wheat trampled underfoot, unfit for consumption and heart wrenchingly pitiful." It has been called the Rape of Persephone, but perhaps the tale was not quite so simple. Rated for reference to rape.


_To Everything There Is An End_

* * *

**Persephone is born and raised as a homeless child, but she doesn't really mind. The world is a lovely open place full of green things blessed to grow straight and strong by Demeter. Her mother holds her close and hums lullabies about the gods of Olympus. They sleep outside, because the thought of a person attacking a pair of sleeping goddesses is laughably preposterous. **

**Demeter leaves Persephone, occasionally, for relatively brief amounts of time. She is a goddess with earthly duties, creating conditions under which the mortals' crops will grow so that harvests are bountiful. But every god and goddess has expectation to fulfill on Olympus, unless you happen to be Hades. Nobody much likes inviting Death to Olympus.**

Can you remember the feel of sand between your toes and sun on your back while a sand fiddler skitters, bug-like, for safety in your palm? Was that even your memory to recall? Or did you snatch it from between the folds of an anecdote someone whispered to you in secret childhood-story tones once a long, long time ago? Perhaps it wasn't even offered to you, were you a pale ghost child that sat on a towel beneath the umbrella, white hair dry as bone and red eyes tracing the movement of your siblings in the waves, like a defective trumpet fish trying to understand how it is so markedly different from the coral? Did you imagine the bruising force of those ash grey waves reaching out to sweep you away from the hurt of words like _mutation_ and _freak_ in the manner of a parent? Was it your mother or father who deserted you on that shaded towel with a bottle of sunscreen, to search for sea glass with your younger brother? Did you even know your father?

**It just so happens that when the gods of Olympus convene to discuss matters, the only deities not in attendance are the reviled Hades and sheltered Persephone. It is coincidence that he sees her, because if it had been anything close to likely Demeter would never have left her precious daughter on earth for him to discover. **

**Hades finds her anyway. Persephone kneels in the dirt and sifts through plants to find the stems of only the brightest blooming flowers. She plucks them delicately, with a practiced hand used to the touch of plants and other living things. After a certain number she gathers together the bunch and relocates to the shade of a tree, where deft hands transform the already lovely flowers into beautifully intricate crowns.**

**Hades watches and wonders, and feels cupid's arrow pierce his heart. He has never loved before, so it burns him like a youth until all that matters is having Persephone by his side. His adoration decays into want and madness without her reciprocal affection. Hades waits until she sits alone, then he splits the world open and leaps forth in a chariot of black horses to grab Persephone like a drowning man for air. Then Death pulls Springtime deep into the ground where nobody can find her and claims her as his bride.**

Was there ever a place where you didn't really live, but referred to as home anyway and not just as a place you visited? Did the people there look like you? Or was it something beyond race or language that tied you to them stronger than steel cables or spider web silk? Did you panic when the earth shook beneath your feet as if a stampede of wildebeest were surging towards you? Or did you force yourself to take evenly paced strides until you were safely in a door way and out from under the precariously swinging chandelier? Was the program you were watching abruptly cut by a tsunami warning? Or did you only turn the television on—thank God or the universe or whatever, that the power symbol is universal and you don't have to decipher kanji for this—after an upset mother-woman of no blood relation called your cell phone to make sure you were okay? Did you see the footage of diminutive Japanese cars trying to outrun the ferocious wave of death black former sea? Could you have been dreaming(I know you wished you were)?

**Persephone wakes in a room that is not her owns and, wearing clothing she does not recognize, cries into a pillow that smells pungently like Death's cologne. She started this myth as a child and will end it as a queen, but at this moment she is suspended in the liminal space of neither. **_**Betwixt and between**_**, she feels vulnerable because she is.**

**Hades sits before a fire in an adjoining room of the master suite. The rustle of sheets can be heard only dimly over the sound of Persephone's erratic breathing, and he knows exactly why she's crying. Now that he has her(and isn't that a funny thought, Death has Spring and he will wreck the world to keep her) his madness has dissolved enough for him to realize how difficult he has made life for himself.**

**On the surface, fathoms above Hades, the winter wind howls with the grief and rage of a childless mother. Demeter has scoured the earth and knows that someone must be lying to her. **_**Someone**_** must have seen or heard **_**something**_**. The world will suffer her apathy until she knows where her daughter is.**

**Deep down in the underworld, a trickle of dried blood sticks the sheets to Persephone's thigh.**

How different do you think a crying woman is from a crying man? Did you ever realize that girls—excuse me, _females_—are allowed to be more childish then individuals of the non-female—excuse me, _male_—persuasion? When you noticed, did it burn you up with envy, because either society thinks you can't be strong or refuses you your ability to be anything except steel, stone, or something else unbreakable and unfeeling? Were you kind enough to understand that double standards run in both directions, like a passive ion channel in a cell? Did you pool your meager empathy into a mouthful of pity, and did it taste as bitter as the medicinal alcohol on your breath?

**Persephone wants her mother. It's a nostalgic feeling, because typically either her mother is with her or will be back shortly so there's never really a reason to miss Demeter. She hasn't missed her mother since she was very young and didn't understand why Mommy would leave her alone with only the nymphs for company. But since her mother always came back it was a feeling that Persephone grew out of with age. Now, she feels like a small child again.**

**She spends what feels like a day alternating between crying and fitfully napping, only to wake yet again in the room that isn't hers and weep until she finds it within herself to sleep once more. Eventually the pillows smell like salt instead of Hades and she finds it within herself not to cry, or rather, she can no longer locate the pool of tears that seemed infinitely deep only hours before. She stares up at the polished oak ceiling and feels hollow as a dried wheat stalk.**

**Hades tentatively creeps into the room, as silent and undetectable as a shade so that his appearance at the bedside should surprise Persephone. **

"**Darling," he calls to her softly, frightened as a schoolboy with only half the false bravo.**

**She turns her head to face him. "Only my mother can call me that," she hisses as fire burns in her eyes like summer suns, "And my mother will come for me."**

"**Demeter has no power here." He speaks gently, almost apologetically.**

**Persephone sits up sharply, the covers falling down towards her waist so that Hades can clearly see the marks he left on her skin. Regret pangs in his chest but doesn't quite make it to his eyes. Persephone doesn't hesitate to spit, "She will bring my father, and **_**he**_** has power here."**

**Death is neither a coward nor a liar, so he tells her, "Zeus agreed that I could have you as my queen."**

**Persephone collapses back down onto the bed as the fire in her eyes winks out like dying stars. Now she is wheat trampled underfoot, unfit for consumption and heart wrenchingly pitiful.**

**The taste of regret is burning and acidic in the back of Hades throat, but he knows he needs her when he has never needed anyone before. Servants bring a tray of exquisitely aromatic stew, but Persephone doesn't touch a single drop.**

Is there a name for that rip-tear-pull-apart sensation that carved out you insides when your world cracked in half and, because you stood idle in the blast radius, splinters of what had once been stabbed into your skin and made you feel like bleeding? I have heard of an adjective pronounced like _suicidal_, but wouldn't you agree that there is a difference between wanting to die and being made not to care if you live? If it is possible for a choice to be involved, then how does one determine who's choice it was? Don't give me bull about synapses not firing properly, weren't you paying enough attention in lecture to know that the pre-synaptic nerve releases the serotonin filled vesicles just fine, it's just that it will reuptake them if the post synaptic nerve doesn't bind quickly enough? Do you remember the metaphor with the little child and the disgusting blanket they never set down long enough for a parent to clean?

**Hades comes to Persephone every evening. He pulls a chair beside the bed and speaks to her in the steady, rumbling tone of death. The servants of his palace bustle and twitter through the halls outside the master suite, their number gradually increasing daily. But inside the room Death only has eyes for his Springtime consort. He rambles aimlessly on about his realm and duties. Every interesting person that has ever lived must also die, so he has their stories to share as well.**

**Persephone lays as still as heartwood most days, her eyes glued to Hades and her hand limp as plucked flower stems in his palm as he strokes the back of it with his thumb. One day she asks a question in a hollow, wispy voice. "His age?" is all she whispers, all she has said for weeks, but there is something in her eyes that crackle like a spark. At least she has said something.**

**The next day Death plucks her from the bed and carries her like a child through the halls. Spring has withered to pale petal skin and brittle bird bones because she remains too full of lost-ness to eat anything. He takes her to a garden where the roses are rubies on stems of emerald. Hades is the Rich One, god of the underworld—where all material wealth comes from.**

**The flowers and trees sparkle and shine under the light of a false sun. Persephone cannot believe what she's seeing for a long moment. Then she blinks, long and slow in wonder. A tear trickles down her cheek, but she turns her head to bury her nose in the crook of her husband's neck.**

"**Thank you," she whispers.**

"**Think nothing of it, my heart," Hades murmurs tenderly into his wife's hair before kissing it softly.**

Have you ever stood in a house that wasn't yours but once was? Had you moved on to a new house, a fresh start after white washing away the pencil marks of your childhood growth? Or were you too young or vulnerable to be given the option? Did you life style reorient around two houses and your scheduled time to be in each? When you refer to one house as your mother's(the one with morning glories crawling up the porch railing) and the other as your father's(the one with a fenced in yard for the blind, old dog that bites strangers), which house is your home? Is it possible to stretch your sense of self and ownership to encompass both? Or did you only tentatively refer to your sleeping quarters in each as your own? Maybe you shriveled up and folded inward in preparation, so that even if your family cracked in half like a diseased fruit, you remained whole even if you were less? Did it work(and can you teach me)?

**Zeus calls Demeter before him with a summons she cannot refuse. He is ferociously angry. She is viciously unrepentant.**

"**The mortals are dying," he bellows like thunder.**

"**So they shall until my daughter is returned to me," she hisses like a cat at a dog who's eyes she is perfectly willing to claw out. Demeter has been cracked by lonely mother feelings and she throws them at her brother/lover/king like knives. "The Sun told me what he saw! **_**You gave away our Persephone!**_**"**

**Sparks fly like lightening as Zeus grinds his teeth in frustration, "Have her then!"**

**Persephone meets her mother at the gates with pomegranate juice trickling down her chin like blood. She is dressed like a queen, with a crown of diamond daisies in her hair and a choker of gold around her neck. Kore smiles as pleasantly as a friendly stranger at the mother of her past life, "I think a compromise can be reached."**

**Demeter cackles madly with hurt and bitter loss every year as winter devours all the green she worked so hard to grow when her daughter was by her side.**

Do you remember the feel of thin bones under aging paper skin? Did the ache in your joints make it hard to get out of bed? Or was that just the excuse you clung to when it was really the ache in your chest that weighed you down like cement shoes in an oily bay? Who was it that coaxed your fragile limbs into leaving the blanket behind and starting those days when you knew the only thing accomplishable was getting closer to the end? Did he slip silently from between your covers to bring you coffee with the exact amount of sweetness needed to make your heart melt? Was it her peaceful sleeping face that convinced you the day was worth living, because she would be by your side? Would it make sense to say that no one was surprised you stopped getting out of bed after they passed? Sorry, was that a past life or the future?

"**The mortals don't believe we exist anymore, Love," Persephone mutters tenderly to her husband. She lays beside him and absently mindedly counts the grey follicles on his head. It seems to her that there is one for every year since the year she learned to love him. There are so many that it is impossible for her mind to grasp the number and she loses count consistently.**

"**I know, Pet," Hades cards his fingers through her hair, all of it a brittle silver, and worries about his heart's new found mortality.**

* * *

Questions and comments appreciated. I'd really love to hear your interpretation. 3


End file.
